Mask of Swords (29 page)

The ladder’s hooks slammed against the wall, and the Skuldari warriors started scrambling up the rungs. A massive shout went up from the waiting warriors, and they charged forward, making for the ladder. More arrows hissed from the walls, and this time the charging Skuldari raised shields of hide and leather to protect themselves. Adalar set himself, both hands wrapped around the hilt of his greatsword, and drew the weapon back. 

A moment later the blue-painted face of a Skuldari warrior appeared atop the ladder, and Adalar swung. The power of his swing drove his heavy blade through the warrior’s neck, a burst of crimson blood shooting into the air. Head and body both fell down the ladder, and a second warrior started pulling himself over the battlements. He caught Wesson’s mace in the side of his head, and the warrior twisted and fell from the rungs. 

The rush came after that. 

Adalar sheathed his greatsword, took up an axe and a shield, and fought alongside his men. Skuldari warriors rushed up the ladder, howling the names of Marazadra and Basracus. Adalar bashed with his shield and swung with his axe, blood splattering across his armor. One of his men went down, his throat opened by a Skuldari sword, and Adalar slew his killer with a quick slash. Sigaldra’s voice and Talchar’s hoarse bellows rang over the fighting, and Adalar saw another ladder hastening towards the wall. This ladder has something red and black atop it, and for an instant Adalar wondered if the ladder had been topped with blood. 

No. It was a soliphage in a black robe.

“Brace yourselves!” shouted Adalar, and the second ladder slammed into the wall.

The soliphage leaped forward with deadly grace, the black robe tearing away to reveal the creature’s armored, feminine form. The soliphage struck, its spider legs uncurling from its sides, and killed two of Adalar’s men with vicious sweeps of its claws. The white glow in its eight eyes brightened, and the soliphage whirled, seeking more victims. 

In that moment, Adalar attacked.

The soliphages were fearsome creatures, but they were still living things of flesh. They were not like the runedead, undead horrors that could only be destroyed through magic or the fire of wizard’s oil. Their chitinous armor, Adalar had discovered, was about the strength of steel plate. The soliphages moved far faster than a man wearing actual steel plate, but a heavy blow could penetrate to their innards and even kill them.

So Adalar launched a heavy blow of his own, dropping his shield and swinging his axe with both hands.

He caught the soliphage in the torso, his axe sinking home with a heavy crunch. Black slime gushed from the wound, and the soliphage reared back with a shriek of fury, its legs lashing at the air. Adalar ripped the axe free and ducked under a sweep of the soliphage’s legs. Two spears slammed into its chest and tore through the chitinous armor. The soliphage reared back with another shriek, and Adalar swung his axe once more. This time his blade bit halfway into the creature’s neck. He did not pause, but ripped the weapon free and swung twice more. 

The soliphage’s head fell over the battlements in a spurt of blackish slime, while the body slumped to the ramparts. Adalar picked up his shield as two of his armsmen seized the corpse and flung it over the wall. A second soliphage was several yards further down the rampart, three corpses at its feet, ghostly white light playing around its hands as it cast a spell at a group of Arnulf’s thains. The thains charged the soliphage, but Adalar was faster. He came up behind the soliphage and buried his axe in the back of its head. Its chitin let out a hideous cracking noise, and the soliphage lurched. As Adalar tore his axe free, the spearthains drove their weapons into the soliphage’s lurching body. The impacts overbalanced the creature and sent it tumbling over the wall, past a ladder heavy with ascending Skuldari warriors. 

A groan of dismay went up from the Skuldari fighters. Adalar wondered why, but then he remembered some of the things Lady Romaria had said about the Skuldari. They believed the soliphages emissaries of their goddess, and they would consider killing a soliphage to be a desecration, a blasphemy. Perhaps it would weaken their morale. 

Or perhaps it would drive them into a killing frenzy.

Yet the Skuldari attack wavered. No more ladders reached the walls, and it seemed the Skuldari had only built six of the damned things. From time to time a group of Skuldari warriors attempted to get another ladder closer to the wall, only for volleys of arrows to drive them back. More Skuldari warriors streamed towards the ladders already at the wall, but the narrow ladders provided an excellent bottleneck. A mound of Skuldari corpses began to rise below the ladders. For a moment Adalar wondered if the Prophetess intended to construct a ramp of the dead. He had heard tales of Malrags doing similar things during their invasion of the Grim Marches. 

A quick glance over the wall proved that theory wrong. The Prophetess and Earnachar were well out of bowshot, yet neither one of them looked particularly happy. Earnachar in particular seemed to be ranting. Then a silvery blur shot from the horsethains, running for the wall with inhuman speed.

Rigoric was coming.

###

Sigaldra aimed, took a deep breath, drew back her string, and released. The arrow flew from her bow and slammed into the leg of a Skuldari warrior ascending a ladder. The warrior bellowed in pain, the whites of his eyes stark against his blue-painted face. He reached for his leg, overbalanced, and tumbled from the ladder to land on one of the sharpened stakes below. 

Part of Sigaldra’s mind reveled with vicious joy. That man was an enemy of her people, and he had met his just fate. Part of her, a small part, was sickened by the carnage, though she had seen too much war and too much death for that part of her heart to touch her. 

But most of her mind was focused upon the cool discipline of archery. 

One of her oldest memories was of her father teaching her to hold a bow. Sigaldra had taken to the bow well, had even gone hunting with her father and brothers before they fell in battle. Sometimes, when she held a bow, she felt as if her father and brothers were still with her.

Then she realized they were still dead, and her anger returned anew. 

She sent another arrow into a Skuldari warrior, and felt nothing but furious satisfaction as the man fell dead to the ground. 

A flash of metal caught her eye, and Sigaldra turned. 

Something metallic raced towards the wall with such speed that for a moment Sigaldra thought that Earnachar had loosed a ballista bolt towards them. Then she realized it was Rigoric. He was moving faster than any man had the right to move. The ladders were choked with Skuldari warriors. What did Rigoric think to do? He couldn’t climb the ladders, and if he tried to climb the walls, Sigaldra and the other archers would shoot him dead.

Instead, he jumped.

She had thought Rigoric a ballista bolt, but now a catapult stone was more accurate. He hurtled through the air in a high arc, soaring over the battlements, and landed amidst Adalar’s and Wesson’s men. For a moment the knights stood stunned, gazing at the armored giant. Rigoric straightened up, his bloodshot eyes moving back and forth behind the peculiar mask of sword blades. 

The armsmen yelled and charged, and Rigoric burst into motion.

His twin broadswords whistled from their sheaths, and in two heartbeats as many men fell dead, one of them tumbling from the rampart to land with a crunch in the street below. The orcragar went into a whirlwind of death, striking down men with every blow of his blurring swords. The armsmen and knights fell back, and Sigaldra realized the Prophetess’s intended tactic. Rigoric was an army to himself, and he could clear and hold a spot on the rampart. Once he did, the Skuldari would swarm up the ladders and surge into the village.

“Archers!” shouted Sigaldra.

Rigoric killed another one of Lord Mazael’s armsmen, and then Adalar was there, striking with his axe. The orcragar turned and drove both his swords at Adalar’s shield, which shattered beneath the force of the impact. Yet Adalar had somehow anticipated the movement, and he used the momentum to spin past Rigoric, skirting the very edge of the rampart. For an awful instant Sigaldra was sure that he would fall to his death, but Adalar swung his axe as he turned. The heavy blade crunched into Rigoric’s side, breaking the links of his mail, and the big warrior staggered. He whirled to follow Adalar, and Sigaldra saw bladed steel filaments sprouting from his mask, sinking into his skin like metallic roots. 

Still Rigoric did not cry out.

The orcragar charged, and Adalar drew his greatsword in a blur of his own. The wound ought to have slowed Rigoric. Yet the big warrior showed not the slightest sign of pain. For an instant Sigaldra was sure that Rigoric was going to kill Adalar. Rigoric was stronger and faster, but Adalar’s sword gave him the longer reach, and in the close confines of the rampart that granted Adalar the advantage. Adalar managed to land several glancing hits on Rigoric’s arms and neck, blood flowing from the wounds. Yet the wounds shrank even as Sigaldra watched, more of the metal filaments bursting from the mask and sinking into Rigoric’s flesh.

It wasn’t possible. The orcragars had been faster and stronger and more resilient than normal men, but even they could be killed. What sort of magic had the Prophetess worked upon Rigoric? More Skuldari were pouring up the ladders, and unless Rigoric was stopped, he would hold the rampart long enough for the Skuldari to fortify a foothold. 

If that happened, Greatheart Keep would be overrun in short order. 

A dozen archers gathered around Sigaldra, drawing their bows.

“Adalar!” shouted Sigaldra, hoping that he could hear her. “Get down!” 

Adalar jumped back, out of reach of Rigoric’s blurring swords, and risked a glance over his shoulder. His eyes widened and he ducked. 

Sigaldra hoped that was enough.

“Release!” she said.

The archers released, and a dozen arrows slammed into Rigoric. Some bounced off his steel cuirass and skittered away. Yet a few of the arrows punched through the gaps in his armor and into his flesh. One drove right through his throat and out the back of his neck, blood sheeting down the front of his armor. Still the huge warrior made no sound, though the force of the impacts knocked him back several steps. More steel threads burst from the mask and plunged into his skin, and it almost looked as if a maze of tiny steel roots hung from the mask. 

Adalar struck, swinging his greatsword with both hands. The steel blade struck Rigoric across the stomach. The blow did not penetrate his armor, but instead forced Rigoric back against the battlements. Adalar stepped back, stabbed his sword behind Rigoric’s knees, and yanked it forward. Rigoric’s legs went out from underneath him, and he lost his balance and fell over the battlements. There was a loud clank as Rigoric struck the ground. Sigaldra looked for him, hoping that Rigoric had broken his neck in the fall, or at least had been speared upon one of the sharpened stakes.

Instead she saw him hurtling back towards Earnachar and the Prophetess with tremendous speed, moving so fast that she could not hit him with her bow.

A groan went up from the Skuldari upon the ladders. Rigoric’s withdrawal had disheartened them, and Adalar, Wesson, and Talchar led a charge to clear the Skuldari from the walls. The Skuldari warriors retreated down the ladders and fled out of arrow range from the wall, much to the obvious rage of Earnachar. 

Her men started to cheer, shouting insults as the besiegers. 

Something hotter than fury and colder than death shuddered through Sigaldra. She wanted to scream defiance at them, to spit upon the corpses arrayed below her wall. But she held herself in check. This wasn’t a victory, not yet.

This was only the beginning.

###

Later Adalar stood over the gate with the others, drinking from a cup of cool water one of the Jutai bondswomen had brought him. His throat always got dry after he was done fighting. Or maybe it went dry while he was fighting, and he never noticed until the killing stopped and his heart slowed down again. 

He was not troubled by the men he had killed today, which troubled him, and the absurdity of it made him want to laugh. Adalar had killed men today, had seen them die screaming, and felt the heat of their blood spatter across his face. The runedead had been undead monstrosities, and a man could fight them without a twinge of conscience. The Skuldari were living men, sons and fathers and brothers, and Adalar had slain many of them today. 

Yet they were in the wrong. The Jutai only wanted to be ignored, left to live in peace upon their farms. Earnachar would not even grant them that, and he had invited the Skuldari into the Grim Marches. They would kill everyone in Greatheart Keep in the service of their new goddess and her Prophetess.

Adalar found he had no qualms about killing such men. 

“It was a mistake,” said Sigaldra. 

“Hmm?” said Adalar, shaken out of his thoughts. He rebuked himself for letting his mind wander. Still, he had not slept for nearly two days, and his mind was starting to drift. He was going to need rest soon.

“This attack upon our walls,” said Sigaldra. “They do not have enough men to take Greatheart Keep by storm.” 

“Perhaps they thought the soliphages and Rigoric would be enough to clear the ramparts,” said Vorgaric, leaning on his heavy hammer. The blacksmith had come through mostly unscathed, though he had some cuts on his arm and a slight limp where a sword had bounced off the chain mail guarding his hip. 

“It could be,” said Adalar, “that for all her power, the Prophetess is a fool.”

They all looked at him. 

“How so?” said Sigaldra.

“At least in matters of war,” said Adalar. “She has magical power and knowledge, that is clear. Yet that does not translate into the skill of a captain. Perhaps she thought that the soliphages and Rigoric would overcome us.”

“Or she planned on opening the gates with a spell,” said Timothy, “and did not anticipate finding me here.”